Replenishment of Halves
by 7types
Summary: After the events in DH,Harry and Snape come to a tentative understanding. AU.


_Alone I cannot bear this image. You / Are the kind gathering I most falter to. / Love only is replenishment of halves. _- The Hour Glass, James Merrill_  
><em>

That summer, Harry often dreamed of the train station, the empty platforms stretching out into the distance, and woke with the rumble of a faraway train still echoing in his ears. During the day, he worked along with the others, rebuilding Hogwarts. He carefully avoided the hospital wing where Snape still lay in a healing coma. The potions, the spells, whatever they were using – it was working. This meant eventually Snape would wake up and Harry would have to deal with him.

Harry wasn't at all sure how he felt about Snape. He had knelt in the man's blood and waded through his most intimate memories. Well, maybe they weren't his most intimate – obviously, no way of knowing that – but still a lot more intimate than Harry had been prepared for. So Snape was still a hateful bastard and had always been, but now there was… context, he supposed.

Still thinking about Snape's context and moved by an obscure impulse, Harry went back to the Room of Hidden Things to look for the Half-Blood Prince's book. It was no good: the room would not open, and Harry went back to his dorm feeling more muddled than ever.

In August, they finally brought Snape out of the coma. By that time, most of the work had been finished and everyone who had stayed to rebuild had gone home, except Harry. He had been invited to stay at the Burrow, but just thinking of the crowds and the noise there made his head throb. Instead, telling himself that he was brave, that he'd faced much worse, he went to the infirmary.

Madam Pomfrey was there, pouring a vividly colored potion down Snape's throat. "There," she said, stepping away briskly. "All done for now. Ten minutes, Potter," she added, catching sight of Harry. "I'll be in my office."

Snape was looking sideways at Harry. He seemed wary.

"Uh, Professor?" Harry began. "Um, I, that is, I meant…" Snape just kept staring at him.

"You're _alive_, Potter," he said. His voice was thin and hoarse. "How are you alive?"

"Well, I died first, like I had to. Don't worry, I did it properly. But… I came back. I didn't know I'd come back. Did you…? There was a train station, and Dumbledore was there, and he said I had a choice, if I wanted to come back or go on."

"Potter. Was that… was that even English?" Snape waved imperiously at the chair next to his bed. "Sit. Tell me everything properly, beginning at the beginning and ending with the end. I find I am tired of being kept in the dark."

Snape listened carefully, occasionally interjecting a sarcastic remark or a snort. "As James Forsyte said, nobody ever tells me anything," he said after Harry explained about the Horcruxes. "And much good that did everyone." Towards the end he grew somber, especially during the tale of the Deathly Hallows.

"Did you know what they were?" Harry asked.

"I knew of them, vaguely. Never interested me much. Can't say I hold with _gadgets_," Snape sniffed. "Trust Dumbledore and the Dark Lord to be impressed by that sort of thing. Did Dumbledore ever tell you if he _meant_ for the Dark Lord to kill me for that wand?"

"I don't think so," Harry said hesitantly. "He… he felt bad about what happened. I really think he did. When we talked in the train station, he said, 'Poor Severus'; I don't think he meant for it to happen."

"I'll 'poor Severus' him," Snape said. "I always wished he wouldn't pretend to care. Well, never mind that – go on."

Madam Pomfrey came out of her office several times while Harry talked, but retreated each time without interrupting. By the time Harry concluded his tale, Snape was visibly exhausted, and Harry left soon after.

Though he had not got any answers from Snape – had not, in fact, got around to asking him any questions – Harry felt more settled in his mind as a result of their conversation. Certainly Snape had not been as hostile as Harry remembered him, though that was probably just exhaustion.

That night, Harry dreamed about the train station again. A child's wail rose thinly in the distance. "Get it right this time, Potter," Snape's voice said sharply. The next morning when Harry went to the hospital wing again, Snape had been moved to Saint Mungo's. For testing, Madam Pomfrey said. No, Potter, I can't tell you what for, that's confidential information.

After some thought, Harry finally decided to accept the Weasleys' invitation to stay for the rest of the summer. Somehow, being around other people did not seem quite so unbearable anymore.

"So, do you think these dreams mean anything?" Harry asked. "I tried not to read into it at first, but it's actually getting to be kind of disturbing."

"I don't know, Harry." Hermione frowned. "It could just be the trauma from everything that happened. You haven't exactly had a lot of time to process everything."

"Or it could be a piece of Voldemort still inside me." Harry thought uneasily of the child crying in the train station.

"That's really unlikely, though. Harry – just because it's the worst case scenario, that doesn't mean it's true. You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah, I know. And I… I do feel different. And I can't feel him when I try. So…"

"He's gone."

"Yeah."

They sat in silence for a while longer, until Ginny came out to call them to dinner.

In September, Harry got on the Hogwarts Express with mixed feelings. He hadn't felt the shock he had half expected on finding himself at King's Cross again. Teeming with hurrying passengers and echoing with unintelligible announcements, it was an entirely different place from the rows of deserted platforms in his dreams. Ron and Hermione went to see him off. While it was no surprise that Ron chose helping George in the joke shop over another year of school, Harry had been shocked to learn that Hermione wasn't coming back either. "There are more important things than school," she had told them, as Ron dramatically clasped his hands to his chest and pretended to faint. "Oh, stop it," she'd snapped. "I mean, it's not like I have ever chosen anything else over school... oh wait – except for all of last year!" She was going to stay with her parents and rebuild their relationship, which had been eroding long before she had Memory-Charmed them and packed them off to Australia.

Neither of them had quite understood Harry's decision to return to school. He wasn't sure he understood it himself, but he knew he wasn't ready to leave yet. If that feeling had anything to do with unfinished business with Snape, he was not admitting it to himself. Not that he even knew that Snape would be there, necessarily.

Snape was there, alright, in his usual seat at the head table, glaring down his nose at the students streaming into the Great Hall. His glance lingered briefly on Harry and Ginny taking their seats at the Gryffindor table. To his own surprise, Harry could not stop himself from grinning. Snape raised his eyebrows and demonstratively looked away.

During Potions, Snape ignored Harry completely. He looked more tired than intimidating, Harry decided as he watched Snape stride around the classroom and bark comments at people's potions. Maybe it had always been this way and nobody had noticed? Harry tried to recall how Snape had looked during sixth year and couldn't quite manage it. It made sense he had been tired then; tired and worried and fed up, and who knew what else.

That evening, Harry took out the Marauders' Map and made his way down to the dungeons. The door to Snape's rooms turned out to be what he had taken for a supply cupboard a few doors down from the Potions classroom.

"You don't have a portrait?" Harry asked when Snape opened the door. "To guard your rooms, I mean."

"I told you, I don't hold with gadgets. I hope I am perfectly capable of casting all necessary wards. Now, what do you want?"

"Can I talk to you?"

Snape's eyebrows drew together. "_Talk_ to me? I fail to see quite how… Oh, never mind. You might as well come in," he said, moving out of the doorway. "You'll want tea, I suppose."

Harry didn't particularly, but figured it would be less awkward if he agreed. It be more of a real conversation if it took place over tea, not to mention make it harder for Snape to throw him out. The only place to sit was at a long table, most of which was covered with papers, books, and assorted debris. Harry sat down and gingerly moved a pile of papers to the side.

Snape plunked a full mug in front of him, sloshing hot tea over the table and onto some of the papers Harry clearly hadn't moved far enough. He sat down opposite Harry, holding his mug in both hands.

"What?" he said irritably.

"What?" Harry echoed.

Snape took a deep breath, then another. His eyebrows inched upward and his face assumed an expression of I Am Being Incredibly Patient With You.

"You said you wanted to talk to me. What did you want to talk to me about?" His voice was also, annoyingly, infused with Incredible Patience – or, at least, Snape's idea of such. Harry gritted his teeth. He should've known this would be a disaster, in one form or another. Just because in the hospital wing Snape had been so out of it he'd actually spoken to Harry like a normal human being, didn't mean Harry could just come in and expect to have a decent conversation. So Snape wasn't shouting at him. So, instead, they'd breathe deeply at each other and be Incredibly Patient and the whole thing would be just another waste of time. Harry considered shouting at Snape, but doubted that would lead anywhere he'd want to end up, either. He took a sip of tea. It had lemon, and something sweet and herbal-tasting in it. It wasn't bad.

"I've been having dreams," he said. "Since the battle. It wasn't… So much happened that day. So many really shitty things. Amycus Carrow, he spit at McGonagall and I cast the Cruciatus on him and it _worked_. Why did I do that? I don't know - I'd feel a lot better if I knew why I'd do something like that. I don't even know if I feel sorry about it. I should probably feel sorry, but I just don't know. Then Voldemort made Nagini bite you and there was all that blood, there was blood all over. And then all this stuff about you and my mum and Dumbledore, and you were all dead, all of you, and I let Voldemort kill me… Well, I told you all about that, actually. And after the battle I found out about everyone who died, and… But I'm not dreaming about any of that. Hermione says the dreams are probably from the trauma of the battle, but I never dream about any of the really upsetting stuff, never, and I don't even dream about my parents and Sirius and Remus, though I wish I could, just so I'd see them again." He felt his throat constrict and a tingling behind his eyes. No, not here, not in front of Snape. What was the last time he'd cried, anyway? He stared into his mug, concentrating on not crying. Across the table, Snape cleared his throat.

"What do you dream about?"

Harry looked up. The steam from the tea had fogged up his glasses and Snape looked comfortingly blurry. "Huh?"

"You've told me what you don't dream about. What are those dreams that bother you enough to come tell me, of all people?"

"Oh. Right. So in my dreams, I'm back on the platform at King's Cross, and it's all empty and white, just like when I was dead. Sometimes there's the sound of a train, but I never see it, and sometimes there's a baby crying somewhere, and I… well, I've been worrying there's still a piece of Voldemort left inside me. That thing that looked like a baby when I was with Dumbledore that time and it was really a piece of Voldemort, all that was left of him. Do you think it's possible, that somehow part of him is still alive?"

Snape sighed. "I highly doubt that, Potter. It isn't supposed to be possible to create even as many Horcruxes as we know he did; not to mention the last was apparently an accident. An accident! Who the hell creates a Horcrux by accident? He really was like the old man of Thermopylae – never did anything properly. Sloppy casting, woolly thinking… honestly!"

"Is that what you thought of him? He was really powerful, though, wasn't he?"

"All the power in the world is not helpful if you're not thinking straight. That goes for you too, by the way, Potter. I hope you're not letting any of this Slayer-of-the-Dark-Lord nonsense go to your head, or you'll end up just like him."

Harry looked up at him, startled. "You know, at one point, I really worried about getting like him. But that was just the Horcrux, wasn't it? I mean, I'm not evil or anything, right?"

"You don't have to be evil. All you have to be is powerful and muddle-headed and incompetent – it is usually more than enough. And don't say stupid shite, like 'just the Horcrux' either. You make your own decisions. There is nothing else. Start thinking any other way, and you have seen where that road leads. "

"Huh. I see. But if it's not Voldemort, why am I having these dreams? What do they mean?"

"Really, Potter, I don't know. People have odd dreams all the time without the Dark Lord having anything to do with it, you realize that. Do I look like Sybil Trelawney to you?. If you like, I can tell you something, though."

"Alright."

"It's complete bollocks, by the way. I am making this up entirely."

"Okay."

"You went to the land of the dead and returned. Nobody does that without paying a price, ever. Some people's price is that they must leave something behind. You didn't. Maybe your soul was still too whole, maybe you had nothing capable of remaining dead. Maybe it was something else entirely. In any event, your price was that you will always carry a shadow of that land in you. It is right here, inside you, 'the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns,' and you will carry it with you always."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. But I also just told you that I am making this up, didn't I? Before you get too traumatized, though, consider that what I just told you is true for every living human being. We all carry our deaths within us, from the moment we are born. Death only seems far, but it is always with every single one of us, every second of our lives. And you have experienced more death and violence than most people your age, and have no idea how to deal with it – not that anyone really does, necessarily. Does that make you feel better?"

"Er, not really." Harry thought. "Maybe. Are you always this morbid?"

"Frequently. Listen, maybe your dream means something cheerful and… nice… and… not morbid. Maybe it means you need more vitamins. Who knows, Potter. I told you, people have odd dreams all the time. It isn't always Meaningful and you are not Special."

"It's okay. This conversation is so odd, I don't think my dream is bothering me anymore, to be honest."

"What a relief it is to be of use. You want to return to your dormitory, Potter, before you find yourself losing points for being out after curfew."

Back in his dorm, Harry remembered that this was not the conversation he'd been meaning to have.

The next time, Harry ran into Snape outside. He'd gone to the Quidditch pitch after nightfall to do some solitary flying, but once there, flying had suddenly seemed too exhausting and he had decided to just take a walk. Snape was sitting in the bleachers, to all appearances intently contemplating the night sky. Harry sat down next to him. Snape ignored him. They stayed that way for an hour or two - Harry wasn't sure – mostly without talking.

The next few times, Harry visited Snape in his rooms, where they drank sweet lemony tea and played Muggle and Wizarding card games, both badly. Snape always looked irritated to see Harry, but always let him in. They had halting, rambling conversations about nothing in particular. Snape, unsettlingly, kept alternating between brusque statements and poetical-sounding divagations. They did not argue as much as Harry'd expected. Neither of them seemed to have the energy or the will for screaming matches anymore. Maybe, Harry thought, they were both finally growing up. It seemed odd to think this way about Snape, but all this time everything around him - his role as a spy, his relationship with Dumbledore - had kept him unable to climb out of a perpetually frustrated and angry adolescence.

During Potions, Snape and Harry continued to resolutely ignore each other. Harry snatched odd moments to surreptitiously observe Snape. He watched the way his bony knuckles moved as he gestured, the way the skin around his eyes shifted and creased as he frowned, glared, or stared into space from behind his hair. He still couldn't tell if Snape's eyes were black or just really, really dark brown.

It only occurred to Harry around midyear that someone should have noticed and said something. Did no one really notice that he was not spending his evenings in the common room or the library? Hadn't anyone caught him staring at Snape during class and meals? Apparently not. Even more disturbing was that Harry himself had not noticed how disconnected he had become from the rest of the school. The only person he'd talked to recently, besides Snape, was Ginny, and she'd been spending more and more time with her own friends. Oddly, he found he did not mind much.

It was not until an evening in late March that they finally had the conversation Harry had intended to have in the very beginning. Though, naturally, it did not go much as expected.

"So," Harry began. "You were friends with my mum."

"Yes, I was."

"And… ?"

"And what, Potter?"

"You know."

"Afraid I don't."

"Well, it looked like… it was sort of... I mean, I thought... Were you really in love with her? Because it seeemed..."

"Did it."

"Please. I know this is really personal and all, but would you please talk to me about it? I can't... We can't not talk about this.."

"Personal. Well, you might say that. Not that I didn't see this line of questioning coming, Potter, don't think for a moment I didn't see it. I suppose I might as well answer. The truth is, I did love Lily. When I say she was my friend, I don't think I am fully expressing everything she meant to me. She was my only friend – the only person who ever liked me, who thought I was interesting, who seemed to like spending time with me. It wasn't just... playing gobstones and things together, or doing homework. It was, for me, the kind of friendship that is bigger, more important, than any love vould ever be. I'd only ever read about such things in books before. Obviously, our situations were vastly different, and she never attributed to these quite ordinary aspects of friendship the immense significance that I did. I understand that now. From the vantage point of the present, and with the benefit of perfect hindsight, I can also tell you now that I was never 'in love' with her. Certainly, I wanted to be. I did my best to be, and sometimes I even thought I was. I had also read far too much for my own good – not in vain did my father tell me all that reading would turn my brain into picalilli – much as I am loathe to admit it, even he could be right on occasion."

Snape was in full cry, Harry thought, sounding like something right out of Dickens or something. This meant he was having to be horribly honest about some very genuine feelings. Harry suspected Snape's acute embarrassment about having anything at all like genuine feelings caused him to smother any expression of such in a mound of pseudo-Victorian verbiage. Well, it made him feel better, and Harry didn't really mind, once he'd learned to follow Snape's speeches.

"Everythign I had read at that time (I didn't discover modern literature until my mid-twenties, when it was far too late) led me to believe that unrequited love was the highest form of love existing. This suited me, both because I knew, deep down, that Lily would never feel that way for me, and because I had no idea of what requited love would entail and was horrified of ruining everything we had. Of course, I managed to do that anyway, as you already know. Afterwards, I had to keep forcing myself to believe I was in love with Lily. It was much easier to attribute all my problems, inner and outer, to being tragically Crossed in Love. It was by far the best explanation for absolutely everything in my life – like my own personal Grand Unified Field Theorem. It was the only explanation that made sense to me and to anyone else I had to explain myself to."

"Like Dumbledore."

"Exactly. I would not have even known how to begin explaining the state of mind that led me to throw away the only good thing I have ever known, to damn myself by following the Dark Lord, to damn myself again by leaving him… I hurt Lily because I loved her and I was jealous and humiliated, I threw away my life because I had no hope left for my love, I risked my life to leave the Dark Lord because he threatened the woman I loved – it was all so much tidier that way."

"But it wasn't true."

"No, it wasn't. At any rate, it was far from the complete truth. And, eventually I reached a point where I had to admit that to myself, where I had to stop being a coward and take a real look at myself and never believe easy explanations again. But I let Dumbledore and the Dark Lord believe what they believed – it would have been far too much trouble to explain things, and it would have upset them to know that there was not actually a lever in me that they could press to get a Pavlovian reaction. For goodness sake, Potter, don't look at me like that – of course I know that Dumbledore was, on the whole, a good man and not really comparable to the Dark Lord – but the truth is, he never particularly cared for me. I became a rather good tool, and I saw no reason to upset or perplex him by making him think I wasn't easy to use. Yes, I am bitter, because I am a bitter old man. Don't tell me _you_ never resented being used."

"No, I did. I was angry a lot, actually, though I think the Horcrux may have fed into that. But I really was angry."

"Good. You should have been. Though, it was different for you. He did what he had to do, but at the same time he genuinely cared for you. I hope you know that."

"I do know. And I know he was a good man and probably meant well all around. He was a good man who treated you like shite. It happens, I know. Go on."

"At any rate, I realized that I had not actually been in love with Lily, and this forced me to confront certain truths about my own behavior, and since then I have at least tried not to lie to myself again. Not very lofty, but there it is. We all do what we can. But Lily's memory, and the memory of our friendship, will always be the… well, one of the most precious things in my life."

"Do you still think unrequited love is the highest kind?"

"Of course not – that's all a lot of rot. You had better not get ideas in your head, especially not from me. Do your own misguided reading, if you must."

"But you're not… not still heartbroken or anything?"

"It's not a medical diagnosis, Potter. Parts of me are emotionally damaged, yes, and always will be. And I am fairly sure there other parts that are simply emotionally stunted. And this conversation is getting far, far too personal. If you hadn't noticed."

"I noticed."

"Well, I'm glad you noticed."

"Well, I'm glad you're glad."

"Are you, now."

"Yes, I… dammit, you know, you're just steering this conversation into completely the wrong direction!"

"Am I."

"Look, Snape, that is… Severus… I –"

"Parenthetically, are you actually aware you have been addressing me as 'um… er…" since the beginning of the school year?"

"Stop it. You know what I am trying to tell you – and if you say 'Do I', I will personally strangle you with your own intestines – you have been having the same conversations all year that I have, and there is no way you don't know what I'm trying to tell you."

"Say it, then. Whatever it is, you have to say it, Potter."

"Call me Harry."

"Say it, then, Harry."

"I really need to say it?"

"You do, if you mean it at all. Maybe I should not be putting you in this position, but I am done with putting myself out there. It is not a question of what I want - I can't anymore. I can't. If you can't either, then..."

Snape's eyes were wide open, and close enough for Harry to see that they were just a dark, dark brown, and Snape was looking at him, and Snape needed him to say the words he meant because Snape was tired and afraid and unwilling not to have everything spelled out, and Harry was not a coward, had never been and was certainly not going to be one now, not when it was this important…

It was important to be entirely honest and say exactly what he meant, so Harry chose his words carefully. First, though, he leaned forward and took Snape's hand in both of his.

Snape tried to pull away, the git. "You have to say it first. I'm sorry. I don't have that much faith, and I don't trust myself to interpret gestures, not anymore. I won't know unless you say it. If you can't…"

"Please," Harry said. "I am saying it, alright? I just… I'm not so good with words, alright, and I don't want to mess this up, more than anything I don't want to mess this up, and I really need my hand held. Please?"

Snape subsided. His hand relaxed and his fingers curled slightly around Harry's.

"Severus," Harry began. "I care for you very much. I care for you as a friend and I am beginning to love you as, well… to be in love with you, I think. I don't know quite how this is supposed to go, but I think you feel the same way about me. If you do, I'd like to, well, see where this will go. Just so you know, I really wouldn't mind if where it went was us growing old together and living in a cottage with tea roses and honeysuckle and being disgustingly soppy about each other for the rest of our lives, and all that. I mean, not if you don't want, but this is not... I've really thought about this, is what I'm trying to say. Will you give it a try?"

Snape was looking at him as if he'd grown a second head.

"Tea roses and honeysuckle? Where on _earth_ do you get this stuff from? Never mind, I don't think I want to know. Yes, God help me. I... what you said. This cannot possibly end well, but I suppose there's no fool like an old fool."

"Stop it. You're not old."

"No, I am – what, wise and advanced in age?"

"Stop fishing. You are not old, and I find you attractive – I thought that went without saying."

"It really doesn't, unfortunately."

"Then I'll say it. If you need me to say it, I'll say it. This is important to me. And you said you're going to try as well, you said you feel the same way. Please help me – it's not like I know anything about this sort of thing either."

"So, the halt leading the blind, then? Alright, then. It should be a hair-raising adventure, if nothing else."

"I'll be surprised if it isn't. I look forward to it - don't you? You know you do."

Snape smiled. It was a very small smile, and it did not so much transform Snape's homely face as rearrange his features into an unfamiliar alignment, and Harry noticed him being careful not to show his teeth. He'd have his work cut out for him, and of course you couldn't just rebuild bits of a person as if he were a building - even a semi-sentient magical building. No, it would be far more complicated, and would take a long, long time, Harry thought, and couldn't stop the resulting grin from spreading over his face.

THE END


End file.
